Point of View: The One Thing I Need

Hey all,

There are times when, as a writer, you get worn down.

Sometimes it’s the writing itself. You back yourself into a corner, or your characters suck, or your plot isn’t so much a straight line as a thicket of foxtails.

Sometimes it’s other events in your life – the death of a loved one, problems at your job, natural disasters, or health issues that just make it so hard to just sit down and get the words out.

Whatever the cause, sometimes it’s hard to be bold and creative and fresh and witty. Sometimes you just want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over your head and tell life – and your writing – to just leave you the fuck alone. But when those things happen, there’s one thing that helps get me through.

One person, rather.

Some of you may have met him. My husband Mark has come to a few cons with me, and he’s made some friends there too, so if you’ve met him you know.

But none of you know him the way I do.

Mark is the one who told me to get off my ass and start writing, when I was bellyaching for the umpteenth time that my writing was going nowhere. Mark is the one who told me to take all the time I needed to make my writing career happen. But his support for me – as a writer and in life in general – goes so much deeper.

We spend almost every hour of every day together, and have done so since we started our own business in the late nineties. He’s the guy I turn to when I need support as a writer – when I am waiting to hear back form a publisher about a submission. When I get a rejection. When I am stuck on a plot point.

He’s also the one who is there for me when life knocks me on my ass, which seems to be happening a lot more lately. He finds me and picks me up, and then he hugs me for an hour.

I couldn’t do this without him – writing, life, you name it. I wouldn’t want to.

We’ve joked that it really doesn’t matter if we end up living in a cardboard box, as long as we have each other, but it’s true. I can’t imagine living without him.

So Mark, this one’s for you. Love you madly.

–Me